Festivals are always a boon for vendors, E Commerce players and the channel. The festive season is an ideal period to boost sales and introduce new offerings in the market in order to get higher traction. Consumers are usually ready to loosen their pockets during the festive season and it gives immense space for sellers to pull prospective buyers to their respective marketplaces. Due to handsome discounts and offers, people are more inclined towards online shopping, however, the traditional offline channel has also geared up to give more value addition to consumers. India is celebrating its 70th independence day on August 15 and vendors, channel and OLS have honed up ahead of the festive week.

E Commerce players are at the forefront while announcing attractive deals and offers to lure consumers. Major players such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal are offering huge discounts on their products, ahead of August 15. While Amazon India has launched the ‘Great Indian Sale’ for three days, starting from August 8, 9 and 10, Snapdeal has launched ‘Wish For India Sale’ offering a discount of up to 70 per cent on its products. The E-tailer has also partnered with Future Group for Big Bazaar’s annual Maha Bachat Sale from August 13-17, 2016. Flipkart is not far behind in the race and has launched ‘The Freedom Sale’ from August 10 to August 12.

While the E Commerce players are working overtime on their logistics support to provide users with flawless online shopping experience, utility apps are also running offers and campaigns to gain maximum subscriptions. PAYBACK is running campaign “AzaadiKaPoint” and is offering bonus points on various partners for every transaction on this Independence day. Similarly, Freecharge is running a Cashback Promo Code from August 12-13, 2016.

“Such offers and deals allows the existing customer base of PAYBACK to have varied choices from partners. Consumers can reap the benefits by earning points on their shopping and redeeming their reward points to shop for more. PAYBACK benefits their partners by driving quality traffic to their portals and partners can also obtain deep insights into the customer purchase and spend patterns,” said Gaurav Khurana, Chief Marketing Officer PAYBACK India and Head of Online & Affiliate Partnerships, PAYBACK India.

Offline Channel Gears Up Too

Principal companies have also rolled out several discount and offers on their products. In a bid to encourage channel partners, vendors are also offering various incentive schemes to boost the sale this festive season. Such schemes and incentives play a vital role in company’s channel strategy. In a market flooded with products and competitors, it is critical for vendors to come up with an innovative promotional scheme that would get traction and convert into sales. Channel partners are instrumental in taking this offer to end users and convincing them. According to Deepak Shah, owner of Zon Mobiles and Peripherals, vendors need to rightly motivate and incentivize their channel partners and come up with more discount schemes during festive season.

“There is more demand for smartphones and computer periphery during the festive season. There is also a demand for laptops and tablets, but it is proportionately less that smartphones. Discounts and combo deals are obviously an added flavor to the deal and even customers are in search for such deals,” Shah said.

Snehanjali, a retail chain of IT electronics products is running an exchange offer on laptops. The retail chain is running many offers from brands like Dell , Acer , HP , Lenovo and Asus. It is also offering Emi options from Bajaj/Capital finance on all retail counters. Bimal Jhaveri, owner of Hardtrac Computer Services, who have SIS partnership with Snehanjali said that the EMI option enables the retail chain to pull more prospective buyers who opt for paying in installments rather than a one shot payment.

Win-Win Situation For All

The festive season is a great opportunity for vendors to grab a huge market share and create a brand name. Hence, it is very critical that how vendors react to the festive schemes. The majority of vendors utilizes their marketing resources to build capacities of their channel in the form of incentives and schemes. However, according to some channel partners, there is a sales pressure from certain vendors on partners and if the partner does not meet the target, then he loses on the incentive part. Similarly, in some cases, vendors do not properly communicate hidden clauses in the offer and it ultimately affects partners relationship with buyers. Considering these flaws vendors need to educate partners and assist them to promote their schemes among customers effectively.

The festivals always bring happiness, similarly, for channel business it brings a lot of boost. Festive offers and discounts do increase business and ultimately increases profit margins. Let’s hope that both online and offline marketplaces are expected to make a record business this Independence day.